SEPTEMBER 2011 VOL 3, NO 5

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1 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS Measuring service quality in Islamic Azad University Sanandaj branch, IRAN Freyedon Ahmadi Public management Department, Payame Noor university, Tehran, I.R. of IRAN VOL 3, NO 5 Farzaneh Bidarpoor Islamic Azad University - Arak branch, IRAN Abstract The main purpose of this paper is determining differences between perception and expectation of student of Islamic Islamic Azad University - Sanandaj branch, IRAN from service quality presented in three collages human resource, health care and engineering based of Parasuraman models. For access to this main were selected 410 students as samples. The current study based of objective belongs to applied research and based of gathering data is descriptive research. The results of this research indicated there are meaningful difference between perception and expectation of student based of five dimension of Parasuraman model. Therefore the perception was lower than exception. And kind of college of university have impacted on service quality, in heath Care College this differences are bigger than other colleges. Key words: Service quality, Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy Introduction and review of research literature Quality has been the main interest of many researchers in the past; however even with such extensive research on this topic, the concept of quality is still unresolved (Awan, et al., 2008). Many researchers have viewed it as an outcome of the organization planning, where as many have discussed it with respect to the value for quality in an organization (Reeves and Bednar, 1994; Legcevic and Strossmayer, 2008). Therefore Total Quality Management and Market Orientation strategies have been adopted previously to address the quality related issues (Samat, et al., 2006; Awan, et al., 2008). However in the beginning the researchers spend more time defining the customers and their requirements (Guo, 2002). Thus at that time no importance was given to the measurement and achievement of the customer s trust (Reeves and Bednar, 1994; Samat, et al., 2006; Wang, et al., 2008). In the late 1980,s researchers started measuring quality from the perspective of the customers, in order to fulfill the customer need (Reeves and Bednar, 1994; Gamage, et al., 2008). Service Quality plays a significant role in the existence of an organization (La and Kandampully, 2004). The good image in the mind of consumers, their reliability on the organization and their purchase intention are all result of Service Quality. COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 751

2 Therefore previous studies have discussed the importance of customer s opinion and service quality (Carrillat, et al., 2007; Samat, et al., 2006; Awan, et al., 2008). The customers are the main reason of existence of the concept of Market Orientation (Samat, et al., 2006; Slater and Narver, 1994; La and Kandampully, 2004). The constant struggle to measure the service quality has led to the creation of many service quality measurement models. Some are created due to realization of certain conceptualized dimensions in the environment, while others have empirically showed the significance of these dimensions to the service quality (Abdullah 2005, 2006a). MEASUREMENT MODELS OF SERVICE QUALITY The constant struggle to measure the service quality has led to the creation of many models. The concepts, methodologies and findings have been mentioned with respect to the available literature. From 1988 to 2008, eight Service Quality Measurement Models have been developed; the main of them was Service Quality Model (SERVQUAL). After the extensive research on quality and its perspectives, the importance of considering the consumers need was explored. Maintaining quality in the service industry was a challenge for many firms. In 1988, Parasuraman, et al. developed a model to measure Quality in service sector. The model was named as SERVQUAL relating to service quality. Parasuraman, et al. (1988, p.17) configured different factors that define quality in service sector and narrowed them to 10 dimensions namely, (a) tangible, (b) reliability, (c) responsiveness, (d) communication, (e) credibility, (f) security, (g) competence, (h) courtesy, (i) understanding and knowing the customer and (j) access. However after extensive research the base line was explored; the quality was described on the difference of the consumer expectations and perceptions (Parasuraman, et al., 1988; Carrillat, et al., 2007; Samat, et al., 2006; Guo, 2002; Pitt, et al., 1995; Wang, et al., 2008). The concept of Service Quality explained by Parasuraman, et al. (1988, p.16) as, service quality as perceived by the customer, stems from a comparison of what they feel service firm should offer (i.e. from their expectations) with their perceptions of the performance of firms providing the services. SERVQUAL basically configures the gap where the quality improvement is required (Ho and Wearn, 1996; Rowley, 1997; Parasuraman, et al., 1988; Abdullah 2005, 2006a; Samat, et al., 2006; Awan, et al., 2008; Ruiqi and Adrian, 2009; Chowdhury, 2009). Basically the methodology adopted to measure Service Quality is dependent on the perception and expectation (Awan, et al., 2008). The perceptions explained by Parasuraman, et al. (1988, p.15), as perceived quality is the customer s judgment about an entity s overall COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 752

3 excellence and superiority. The methodology adopted by Parasuraman, et al. (1988) to develop the SERVQUAL was to collect data on the two perspectives i.e. expectations and perceptions of the consumer. Formal questionnaire was developed with 97 questions relating to the 10 dimensions of quality, 200 respondents were selected on the basis of usage of the service from five different industries in services sector namely appliance repair and maintenance, retail banking, long-distance telephone, security brokerage and credit cards. Coefficient alpha was computed to correlate the instruments and to configure the importance of the ten dimensions (Parasuraman, et al., 1988). Relying on the results the dimensions were interrelated on the response of the customer s perception of quality. Eventually five dimensions were formed in the end of the empirical research. Three of the dimensions were original taken whereas the two were correlated and the rest of the dimensions were discarded. Parasuraman, et al. (1998, p.23) defined five dimensions as (a) Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment and appearance of personnel, (b) Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately, (c) Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service, (d) Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence, (e) Empathy: Caring, individualized attention the organization provides to its customers. After testing the reliability of the model Parasuraman, et al. (1988, p.31) tested the importance of the five dimensions; according to the findings of researchers Reliability came out to be the most important dimension in the perception of quality and Empathy was the least important dimension in perceived quality. They also segmented the importance of dimensions on the basis of consumer s psychographics and demographics and then the familiarity of the customer with the service providing chain of the company and the results were in favor of the Model (Parasuraman, et al., 1988; Samat, et al., 2006; Smith, et al., 2007; Awan, et al., 2008; Herstein and Gamliel, 2006; Wang, et al., 2008; Ruiqi and Adrian, 2009; Azmi, et al., 2008; Legcevic and Strossmayer, 2008; Chowdhury, 2009). Thus SERVQUAL is applicable to various industries and is a reliable source to measure perceived service quality derived by the difference in perceptions and expectations of the customers (Parasuraman, et al., 1988; Smith, et al., 2007; Azmi, et al., 2008; Legcevic and Strossmayer, 2008). COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 753

4 Methodology In terms of the practical objective and the data collection method, the present research is descriptive and in terms of the relation between the variables it is of the suavely type. The method of conducting the research is 'Survey research" and the foremost advantage of it is possibility of generalizing the results. 410 Students are selected as sample in 3 college of sanandaj Azad University. For measuring of service quality was used of parasuraman model. Research Hypotheses: Hypothesis1. There are meaningful differences between Students perception and expectation in three of collage Hypothesis2. There are meaningful differences between Students perception in three of collage Hypothesis3. There are meaningful differences between Students expectation in three of collage Hypothesis4. The kind of collage has impacted on service quality. Findings: Based of gathering data from questionnaire the situation of statistical descriptive for professor and university personnel the descriptive statistics was presented in table 1: Table1: Descriptive statistics Mean Median Mod Deviation Variance N Parameter Std. Deviation Skewness Kurtosis Range Minimum Maximum expectation Professor perception University personnel expectation perception COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 754

5 Based of table 1 meaning of perception for university personnel are 2.6 and for professor are 2.8. Also the meaning of expectation for university personnel are 4.1 and for professor are 4.5. Therefore the gap for university personnel are -1.9 and for professor are In other word the gap for university the more than for university. Also the meaning dimension of service quality for professor and university personnel was shown in table 2: Table2: Meaning dimension of service quality for professor and university personnel Dimension Professor University personnel expectation perception expectation perception Tangibles Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy Based of above table for both of professor and university personnel the expectation higher than perception for all dimension of parasuraman model For testing of research hypotheses is used of paired t-test and ANOVA. The results of this analysis are shown the below tables. Hypothesis1. There are meaningful differences between Students perception and expectation in three of collage. COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 755

6 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS Table 3. Differences between Students perception and expectation of collage service quality VOL 3, NO 5 Independent Samples Test Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Equal variances assumed Q6.29 Equal variances not assumed Based of table 3 the differences between perception and expectation of students are meaningful. Hypothesis 2. There are meaningful differences between Students perception in three of collage Table4. Differences between Students perception of collage service quality SERVQUAL ANOVA Between Groups Within Groups Total Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig Based of table4, difference between Students perception of collage service quality are meaningful. COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 756

7 Hypothesis3. There are meaningful differences between Students expectation in three of collage Table5. Differences between Students perception of collage service quality SERVQUAL Sum of ANOVA Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups Within Groups Total Based of table5, difference between Students expection of collage service quality are meaningful. Hypothesis4. The kind of collage has impacted on service quality. Table 6: Compare meaning of service quality based of collage P-value Difference of means collage * Engineering Human Health care resource * Human resource Engineering Health care Human resource Health care Engineering Based of table6. The kind of collage have impact on service quality. In Human resource collage the gap between perception and expectation more than two other colleges. Conclusion: The consumers are getting unpredictable these days, thus it is getting difficult to keep track of their mind (perceptions and expectations), as well as their preferences in choosing the right institutions. Thus it would be a challenge for the Higher Education Institutions to think in such a wide scenario. The concept of developing and managing quality services arose with the competition in the industry. However when it comes to Service Quality Management in COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 757

8 Higher Education Industry it is understood that many benchmarks have been created by the government and the rest of them are created by the competitor and the institution it's self. A Higher Education Institution is one rousing business which pushes the customer to pass judgment and make decisions on the institution. Defining quality in the Higher education industry has been a dilemma, since the theories and models developed so far for measuring Service Quality are derived from various industries. Even the term quality can be viewed from the perspective of a student, faculty or researcher. Thus the variables and their applicability to the Higher Education Industry are questionable. COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 758

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